Tuesday, December 8, 2009

1987 Was Special

Syracuse plays Florida on Thursday. Florida is coached by Billy Donovan. Before coaching the Gators to back to back national titles, leaving for the Orlando Magic, and coming back to coach Florida six days later so he could lead them to back to back NIT appearances, Donovan played college basketball for Rick Pitino at Providence.

I always remember Donovan for a couple of things during his playing days - he was an excellent shooter, and his shorts always seemed extra short, even by the standards of the late 1980s. So, thinking it would be hilarious/disturbing to find a couple of videos of Billy playing in shorts like these:

I headed over to YouTube and started searching. Sadly I didn't find much. In retrospect, that's probably a good thing. However, since Syracuse beat Providence in the Final Four that year, I did find a good Orange-related video that doesn't involve Keith Smart. Let's check it out.

It is the CBS intro to the 1987 Syracuse-Indiana title game.

A couple of fun things jump out in the video:

- No one, and I mean no one, wore the feathered butt-cut better than Steve Alford.

- I'm pretty sure you can see Rony Seikaly's left nut when they show him dunking.

- Juli Boeheim would not appear in Jim's life for quite some time, the giant glasses that he's wearing make that quite evident.

- CBS really, really liked the Jazz theme that year.

So God only knows how videos of today's players will look in 20 years, remember this when you're watching the game and thinking Billy looks just like Eddie Munster, it's not even the worst look on his resume.

About Us

This blog is proudly brought to you by idiots and will cover a wide range of topics in the world of sports, and whatever else has us fired up on a particular day. Fair warning, there will be a heavy emphasis on Syracuse University sports, as we spend far too much time thinking about Jim Boeheim and Doug Marrone. We can't help it.

This is a personal blog and is not affiliated with any of our employers. The views expressed here are our own, and do not represent or contain any expression implied or otherwise to our employers.